that is on the table for democrats and republicans and that is the president and speaker of the house,johnboehnerandhow they are going about this discussion as far as the bush tax cuts and america's sort of fiscal future. now, mark, i'm curious to hear your thoughts on this. first play sound from president obama and john boehner yesterday talking about doing the delicate dance of revenue raraisers. >> i'm not going to extend tax cuts for the wealthiest 2%. how you make up the trillion dollars just by closing loopholes and deductions, the math tends not work. >> i've outlined a framework how both parties can work together to avert the fiscal cliff without raising tax rates. ways to put revenue on the table without increasing tax rates. >> mark a baby version of the themes we've talked about before, which is to say you have a hard line part of the republican party then the deal making part of the republican party and the democrats. how do you think this turns out? can john boehner, do you think john boehner can corral or quiet the more radical elements of the republican party to come to the table

directly at odds with house speakerjohnboehner. >>could you accept a deal that does not include tax rate increases for the wealthy? we've seen talk about a possible compromise that could leave rates the same but cap deductions for high-income earners. is that something that's acceptable? >> no. >> not at all no, way? >> no. the preponderance made it very clear in his campaign that there are not enough -- what you just described is a formula and a blueprint for hampering our future. you cannot go forward -- you have to cut some investments. if you cut too many you are hampering growth, you're hampering education, investments for the future. >> and even thousands of miles away it appears president obama is still focused on those negotiations. while touring a royal monastery with secretary of state clinton in thailand the president was overheard mentioning the budget talks to a monk. the president later clarified his comments -- >> he's not any monk. >> no. >> he has some big i vestments in the stock market. >> he later clarified his comments at a news conference. >> yes, we were working on

.6 trillion of newrevenue.boehnerhadagreed to $800 billion. it's not hard to find $1.2 trillion as a kind of middle ground to that. then you want to have $4 trillion of total deficit reduction, so that leaves $2.8 trillion of spending reductions that have to happen. here's what people miss. we can avoid going over the cliff with the stroke of a pen. they can just extend all this stuff and kick the can down the road. the real question is are we going to have a big deal? are we going to agree on the major spending restraints that we need as well as the tax stuff in order to actually get the deficit under control? and i think the betting on that is less than 50%. i think we have a great shot at it. but it's going to be really, really hard. >> is that the view from wall street, too? they're not totally confident that this is going to happen? >> what you see in the stock market at the moment is that wall street is not totally confident. that's for sure. >> all right. steve, thanks so much. >> pleasure. >>> coming up, independent senator-elect of maine, angus king joins the conversation. he's a

and the ongoing relationshipwithboehnerandmcconnell because he's going to have to be a different kind of leader with them. he talked about it in the press conference a bit the other day. he needs to reach out to them the way he's reached out to people on staten island and dealt with the two governors, christie and cuomo, who are two pretty demanding guys as well. and based on their public and private comments have been very happy with the president's leadership and his government. >> i just wonder if it's fair to make a parallel when you look at the president's response to sandy which has had and continues to have just devastating effects on the economy for businesses and the reaction to the bp oil spill which seemed slow in coming because that was devastating as well to a different part of the country. >> he certainly was. he was very slow to respond to people in the gulf coast. >> in terms of appearances. >> i think things have changed, though, over the past couple years. and i suspect that, you know, even the president's closest allies will say that it was a very hard adjustment go

. >> there is agreement all aroundthatboehnerwantsa deal. the speaker wants a deal, but he cannot sell a deal, even with the goodwill that he thinks he and the president have on that right now, unless there is real graham ruddman type, real requirements, that these things go in simultaneously. and that's what jim baker wrote about recently, who's had that experience, of fashioning exactly that kind of deal. >> it's important, though, that -- >> you have to cut spending in the future. >> you can raise taxes with one congress. but it takes five congresses to cut spending. >> it's important to keep the focus on growth. not taxes, not spending cuts. you know, the goal here is to get our growth from, you know, one plus percent, up to three and four percent. if we don't get growth going, none of this will matter at all. it's really important as the president frames this that he frames it as growth, and therefore i need this tax increase for these people. this kind of spending cuts here. because it will leverage this kind of growth. >> but that's new spending. that's what the president talks about, john,

and you seespeakerboehnerclearlywants a deal and, perhaps, has more leverage now with the house republican caucus, but once you get down to the actual negotiations, there are some very tough issues here, a reason this has not been resolved in previous summits. >> that's right but i am optimistic there was a clear mandate, the mandate was for solving our problems. i'm encouraged at no labels.org, an organization that has about 600,000 people, is putting together a group of 40 members of congress evenly split between democrats and republicans who are agreeing to come together as a problem solver's caucus, that the leadership can go to and cut deals on these important problems like the fiscal cliff, education. we have members of congress that recognize that people want them to be problem solvers and work across the aisle. we'll be announcing these 40 members in short order and that represents the kind of mood we're seeing in the shift in congress. >> let me ask you both about mitt romney's post-election comments last wednesday, be in a telephone conference call with donors. many of

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